How Does The Transpersonal Relate To Inspiration?

Everyone, who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science, becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe: a spirit vastly superior to that of man.~ Albert Einstein

The transpersonalhas been defined as “experiences in which the sense of identity or self extends beyond (trans) the individual or personal to encompass wider aspects of humankind, life, psyche or cosmos”. As a psychologist, I would also say that transpersonal psychology might include spiritual Self-development, which it actually does. This would include the idea that we are spiritual beings having a physical experience. I like to say that “Heart to Heart” contact with another person would also be transpersonal. Furthermore, we can include such experiences as telepathy and Empathy (feeling and identifying another’s emotions as “theirs”). Indeed, much “person-centered counselling” could be seen as transpersonal and we learn that sympathy, adds “insult to injury” because it says: “Your sadness makes me sad.”

In earlier posts, I mentioned Rupert Sheldrake’s “Morphic Fields” (sometimes called Morphogenic Fields) and these are said to be in what Dr. Jung calls “the collective unconscious”. In that post, I mentioned an experiment to test the theory, where two groups (who knew nothing about Japanese language), were asked to memorize in the same length of time; one group were given a Japanese nursery rhyme and the other an equivalent made of non-sense syllables. You guessed it. The nursery rhyme group performed better. So, those Morphic Fields must be helpful.

What does all this have to do with inspiration? Just as “psycho-somatic” healing works, other transpersonal experiences listed above can have a predictable effect. Also, we haven’t mentioned “falling in love,” or sensing an emotional atmosphere in a room after two angry people, fail to hide their altercation. I have begun to feel more inspired driving my car of late. As mentioned in earlier posts, I have learned to consciously forgive other drivers for mistakes and discourteous acts. I have also, remained still on the road, with a hand gesture waving another driver to go on “first.”

Also, in earlier posts, I mentioned my introduction to A Course In Miracles (ACIM). The strategy of forgiveness is only one of several, such as ending all Judgemental opinions. In earlier posts, I said our society is rife with individualism because of the ego-mind’s separatism. Perhaps, these are attractive in competitive sports but I can’t see the inspiration.

Today, I had a long conversation with Michelle Stanton, who uses the ACIM strategies in sales training. She said: “It takes more than sales technique to achieve extra-ordinary success in sales. To become a champion in sales you need to get in the Zone! The Zone is the peak performance state that champion athletes, musicians and artists experienced creating masterpieces” At the moment, it is inspiring to me as I write this.

Let’s look at this from a Transpersonal perspective. We have all had moments in the Zone. I grew up in rural Canada and we had barns with a high haymow (high wooden part of the barn upstairs with a stone foundation and ground floor). These haymows had long-strong ropes that would carry loose hay up and to the side mow and drop it. My brother and I used to climb on huge beams 30 feet from the floor, and swing over half of the length of the barn on that rope! It reminded us of Tarzan movies of that era.

Returning to Michelle Stanton’s “Zone”, here is an inspiring example of the Transpersonal at work. We can certainly imagine the Heart to Heart message reaching the trainees from Trainer who is at her peak and reaching them, with her “On-Purpose” love to serve and having had many victories in the Zone, some can be seen at <www.zonehigh.com>